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| An imminent threat to the US Caribbean. Libcom |
President-elect Donald Trump's resounding victory during the previous elections has unleashed a wave of liberal indignation, with separatist movements surging across California and other US territories. Nowhere is the risk of violence more real than in Puerto Rico, however, where a newly-sworn-in governor has decided that he will seek to change the status of the island, currently considered a commonwealth of Washington.
The Associated Press is reporting that Gov. Ricardo Rossello believes the island of Puerto Rico could be on the verge of collapse, and that a referendum to determine whether the people of the US possession should seek statehood or independence from Uncle Sam could reshape the course of history in the same way that the Spanish-American War of 1898 resulted in a new America.
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the commander-in-chief of the Boricua Popular Army and one of the most-sought men by the Federal Bureau of Investigation until his killing in 2005, only left behind more ruthless men than himself, and President-elect Trump has convinced them that now is the time to strike at the state.
If the BPA utilizes tactics similar to those that it employed in the 1970s and 80s, we could be looking at multiple terror attacks per year by a group that will have gained the amplifying knowledge made available by the Islamic State on the internet. Already, elements within the FBI believe that the BPA has begun to plan bank robberies in the San Juan area with the objective of acquiring the necessary funds to finance their terrorist activities and avenge the death of Mr. Ojeda, who many see as a martyr for Puerto Rican independence.
The way the FBI killed Mr. Ojeda has made the problem worse in the Puerto Rican community, as future heads of the Macheteros, as members of the BPA are known, will be more hostile against the federal government and more willing to take violent action against imagined aggression.
The BPA maintains a network of clandestine cells throughout the United States, and should Puerto Rico's new governor seek statehood for the island, it could radicalize the Macheteros to the extent that they become a bigger threat to national security than the Islamic State, since the Muslim terror group has fewer operatives inside the Homeland.
The economic collapse and statehood ascension of Puerto Rico could herald more than an economic burden on Washington, it could set-off a Hispanic insurgency that may force President Trump to deploy the military on America's streets and place citizens in military stockades. The governor of Puerto Rico has the power to, with the flick of a pen, turn America into a war zone; and history may compel him to inadvertently use that power.
